The alternatives are:

Victim. "I am too weak and poor to help anyone but I expect people to help me." This belief corrodes you.

Stoic(can't think of a better word.) "I don't help anyone and therefore I don't expect anyone to help me". Well, better than the victim but ends up passing up many opportunities where others are genuinely ready to help.

Abuser "I don't bother to help others but I take advantage of them" - becomes obvious very quickly and you are ostracized and hated.

Doormat "I help everyone but because I don't have healthy boundaries, I end up attracting abusers and victims." Gross.

The "best people" are clear and confident with their boundaries and generous with their time and resources when people are on the right side of the boundary. I see this a lot with truly successful senior managers and businesspeople, for example.

Even in politics, when a candidate runs for office, they want to tell stories of "X came to me and needed help and I really took the time to hear them and help them (kindness). Then Y came and they sought to rip us off and I told them to go fuck themselves (boundaries)." We seek that as species, we expect that out of the best among us, and therefore we reward those who operate from this place (and it's good for lots of other reasons.)

* where your boundaries lie along the spectrum from self-serving to doormat

* your propensity to be generous to people on the good side of your boundaries

I myself trend close to what you'd call a stoic. Probably out of fear of being a doormat. My boundaries are healthyish, but I don't quite trust them. So I don't seek out help from others, and in return I hope they don't ask for generosity from me. Being generous without crossing my boundaries is something I have to work on.

I know some narcissists who can actually be quite generous. This fools them into thinking, "There's no way I'm a narcissist!" because they can easily recall past instances of generosity. Yet they're still regarded by others as selfish. Their boundaries are shifted so far in their favor that they feel taxed being generous to others who most would deem worthy of generosity. And they expect sympathy, attention, and generosity in situations where most would not have that expectation.

These abusers often do end up ostracized, but that doesn't always look like solitude. They become victims, upset at their crummy relationships and unable to garner sympathy from others, yet unwilling to ever point the finger at themselves. Some end up alone, yes. Others befriend other victims who they can commiserate with, but those relationships don't last long for obvious reasons. So it's sort of a fleeting, on-again off-again ostracism.

Of course I'm speaking in generalities here. Plenty of victims aren't narcissists, etc. And I do have sympathy. Nobody chooses to be a narcissist. I think some people are just wired that way, or perhaps set on that course by environmental factors early in life. Either way, it's not a choice. So I think it's somewhat of a tragic condition.

My advice would be that if you're consistently getting negative feedback about your personality traits, take it seriously. It'll be tempting to deny and seek disconfirmation, e.g. by changing the subject, blaming your accusers, deflecting to other causes (e.g. race or gender), or running away to find people who will say nice things about you. But for all our follies, human beings are naturally pretty decent judges of character. If you're getting consistent character feedback from lots of different people, it's probably accurate.

One thing jumped out:

>> I think some people are just wired that way, or perhaps set on that course by environmental factors early in life. Either way, it's not a choice. So I think it's somewhat of a tragic condition.

and

>> My advice would be that if you're consistently getting negative feedback about personality traits from others, take it seriously.

If you think about it these two comments are contradictory. Either you are a victim of your programming, or you have the power to (slowly and painfully) recognize it and change.

I am a firm believer that people ultimately can recognize their problems and change. Recognition is the harder part. For most of us, to recognize the really deep and ugly things about ourselves is really hard and often is only done when someone has hit bottom and are forced to confront that there's something wrong. It's easy to say "listen to feedback" but it's impossible to convince someone they should until they've had some painful experience that forced them to recognize there's something that needs to be heard. But it's possible and important.

The other thought as I was reading your comment - I think you'll enjoy Ray Dalio's Principles book.

Edit: Just wanted to add that it’s an incredible book that I recommend to everybody.

I read the op to imply that one should seriously think and reflect on why this feedback occurrs and if there is some kernel of truth within.

If I constantly get feedback I evaluate it and reflect on it. But that doesn't mean I need to implement everything.

Healthy boundaries are more consistent and universal than you think, with the massive caveat being different cultures handling boundaries differently.

But it’s more about the fundamental psychological nature of human beings and less about individual personality.

IMHO a lot of what you describe boils down to “people who could develop healthier boundaries through therapy or other forms of personal growth and healing.”

From the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius:

> [...] Do not be carried along inconsiderately by the appearance of things, but give help to all according to thy ability and their fitness [...] (Book V)

> [...] Reverence the gods, and help men. Short is life. There is only one fruit of this terrene life, a pious disposition and social acts. [...] ( Book VI )

You can read the full ebook here [1] (I'd link to project Gutenberg but unfortunately they're still blocking German readers). Alas.

[1] https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditation...

Stoicism has more to do with things that happen to you vs how you treat other people.

It's great that you disclaim it a bit with "can't think of a better word", but it's just inaccurate.

Perhaps "libertarian"? Or "rugged individualist"?

The line between helping others and full on people pleasing is too blurry, and unfortunately I fell into the second camp.

People pleasing is a BAD, BAD thing.

With family though, (as I notice all your descriptions are from) it is neither time bounded nor emotionally constrained since family don't really leave - they're always there, sometimes physically and certainly emotionally. Your first act of kindness to assist might well be voluntary but the second act could well be more out of a sense of obligation than choice and creates an increasingly involuntary burden.

I have found you have to be careful not to expect much in return otherwise you can start feeling resentful.

If you don't feel like doing something, you should stop. You'll eventually feel resentful and drained if you keep doing something you don't want to do.

Packs of wolves do automatically specialize their individuals (eg alpha wolf spends more time looking after the others) - but the crucial part is that their roles change. If the alpha dies, another individual has to take their place, or the group becomes unbalanced and will probably die because of it. They are not necessarily „gifted“ at being an alpha, but they might be just good enough.

I also cannot imagine helping anybody move who laughed into my face when it was my turn. I actually cannot imagine being their friend at all, but that’s just me maybe.

If you’re so poor that you can’t hire movers I’d rather give you cash so you could hire someone.

You'd rather pay someone than be with them.

Same reason I don’t pick people from airport. I know I sound like a dick, and I don’t mind the downvotes, they are informative.

You have only so much time.

I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive.

I'm also in the tech industry, which seems to have a very aggressive and competitive culture.

It doesn't stop me from being kind and courteous, but it gets grating.

My experience is that, when someone mistakes courtesy for weakness, they start trying to "game" me. I put up with it for a bit, until they push too far.

Then the till gets slammed on their fingers.

They get very, very upset. Far more upset than if I had just disabused them early on.

I'm learning to enforce my boundaries earlier. It doesn't make me as popular, but it also prevents those "psycho freakouts."

There seem to be a lot of people who live at a level of abstraction where they perceive every interaction as being about dominance and submission. In my humble opinion it is a very limited mindset.

I consider myself to be generous person, and also slow to anger. As a result, there are people who think they hit the jackpot and found a submissive pushover who is like a flimsy tree that will bend over at the slightest breath of wind.

Of course it's much more like being water; moving around obstacles, yet always forward and unstoppable.

What matters is showing people that there can be real kindness and strength in the world. Sometimes it plants a seed for others to also have the courage to be kind. I believe that's how to make the world a better place. It sure makes life worth living.

It was eye opening. There was this whole other dimension to the room, which I could barely see, but to her it was front and center.

I don’t aspire to be like that primarily or exclusively, but sometimes it’s helpful to notice and pay attention to.

I like to think of this as report talk vs rapport talk. Men may just report facts to each other with very little emotion attached, whereas women will try and bond and strengthen relationships by telling stories about people and their feelings. This is why men struggle to understand why women in their life are angry that they never talk or don't share how things are with their day. It's because a lot of times, the two people think that the information they are sharing is what is important, and the other person thinks that it is too much/too little detail.

I think those observational skills make women much more suitable for negotiating and understanding nuances, where sometimes men may struggle to have seen the smaller details.

But of course making sweeping gendered statements is usually not accurate or helpful, just some observations in my opinion, and of course MANY people do not fit into this generalisation.

Go back to cavemen times, the men had to follow the blurry beast for dinner. The women had to be alert and vigilant to protect their young. We might think we have come far, but evolution is slow. We are basically living with cavemen genes in an urban jungle.

Sometimes generalizations are true. Evolution takes millions of years.

I had a coworker with this mindset and it seemed incredibly tiring on her mindset. She would routinely total up the cost of the exec's outfits and jewelry/shoes/purse and also always be measuring herself against everyone else in the meeting room. Who hadn't brushed their hair, who had recently gotten teeth whitening treatments, she even noticed when one of the directors got a facelift over work from home. She was able to point out his facelift scars via a screenshot she took.

She ended up getting let go for creating a "mean girl" culture when she iced out some new hires.

It just seemed like a very dystopian way to view our coworkers. I prefer to see everyone as a potential friend and not look for flaws.

For the facelift example, you notice it, and then remark about how youthful the director looks in that new shirt. For the shoes example, you notice it and then remark about their good fashion sense. For the hair example, you go to them and see how the home life is going (colicky kids, a new medical diagnosis, a death in the family, or pure unawareness, etc)

It may seem like 'pandering', but only if you do it to people who can give you a raise. You have to do it for the janitors, bus-drivers, and bar-tenders too. Because you want everyone's life to be a bit better that day.

It's kinda like being a culty-mad-scientist. You have to have all the knowledge, the years of experiments, the cash flow, the ancient texts, the elaboratory. It takes a lot to awake the elder god from it's slumber. But the most crucial step, and the last one at that, is the smarts to know to not to wake up the eldrich world ending demon at all.

Another time a deli worker at the grocery recommended a good turkey flavor, when I saw him next (it was weeks later) I made sure I told him how much I enjoyed it. I then told someone next to me (unsure of what to get) how the man put me on to a delicious flavor (boars head sausalito FYI). I still say “how are you doing sir” when I see this man working and I’m shopping. He remembers me even masked.

All of this really just involves taking things you notice and instead of keeping it to yourself, sharing it! It’s worth doing! I don’t do it for any selfish reasons (except maybe to keep my observation skills sharp). I genuinely feel an appreciation for sharing things I notice about others as they live their lives. My only hope is it makes them feel good about themselves.

indeed, that why you don't comment upon that directly

Not unlike say, mindfulness. Of oneself, of others.

Says the person commenting on HN at midnight ;)

What? No.

I don’t have a good sense for this. Having friends and colleagues and a partner with the focus and attention span for it is invaluable. Like it or not, power dynamics are real. And teams with someone tuned into their social dynamics can work better than one purely technical and aloof.

Just because one doesn’t have a sense for a thing doesn’t make that thing despicable.

1. Say "no", because you too are hungry

2. Share half of the sandwich?

3. Giving whole sandwich & walk away as a saint?

(3) is super kindness, but that needs different level of thinking & practice. Kindness we are talking here is (2).

Your "no" point comes for the remaining half in (2).

Not for a kind person. For a kind person it takes courage to be rude. It takes courage to say no, because it's so easy to say yes, because it feels good and it feels right (and I guess is also better for your health?).

I would stop trying to change people or even thinking you can. Someone will pretend they changed all thanks to you, only to be themselves again later when they're done robbing you.

There's a pervasive pattern of the narcissist type surrounded by submissive people and leaving a trail of submissive victims. These people are immediately repelled if they sense you're a waste of their efforts. When you're submissive, they'll take from you and betray you later. When you're not, they don't even ask. They reveal themselves immediately. But they make their money and build their empires by collecting those who yield to them and remain loyal despite occasional revelations of their true character or lack thereof. Trump could easily be seen as such a phenomenon. But most people who are OK with their job will yield to keep it (backed by the psychopathic behavior of corporations and their lack of character, because they aren't people). And many will submit just to make money (even to evil). So there are no shortage of such people to take advantage of. And the more people thrive by doing so, the more we create. Some may even become president.

If you believe you're water, seek water. That is the best approach. Strengthen your water coalition. Stay healthy, strong, and happy. Once you're good, then fulfill your purpose.

That is sociopathic so it isn’t always easy to identify but it’s easy to disregard.

Kindness is generally a default. At a minimum it’s called mutual respect and at an absence it’s called being an asshole. It hardly takes any courage to be better than that. I cannot imagine the amount of medication people require if that is their definition of courage, as there isn’t any challenge there. Perhaps it’s a cultural difference.

Any tips for doing this during a pandemic? Beyond just the usual of treating people well?

This takes practice and experience but the gist of it here is that you have establish and understand boundaries.

Kindness is giving someone a helping hand when they need it, but not going overboard and letting them take advantage of you over and over again.

In my experience, the less you let vampires suck out your energy, the more you'll be able to give to people and the way to that is by saying No and hearing No.

I personally start by being kind and then await kindness back. If they reciprocate, great. If not, I politely decline their next request and change my response if they change theirs.

Great relationships are formed when there is a mutual exchange of happiness and ideas else it's basically one party taking advantage which is unhealthy.

E.g. It is possible to make a complaint at a restaurant in a factual way and with a smile.

E.g.2. Giving hard feedback with a smile, and constructively.

It comes down to empathy, and the basic rule of treating others as we wish to be treated.

The primary thing they have in common is they are considered opposites by people that have neither.

The tech industry has definitely become more aggressive over the last 20 years. I credit it to the people who decided they should join it because there is a lot of money to be made, when before it was mostly people who liked technology.

And for that latter point: I consider an aggressive attitude a sign of fear (perhaps a consequence of a kind of imposter syndrome?). Generally I pity the mean people.

The worst people are the people who move to cities and try and fit in by adopting some caricature of these customs, which is often accompanied by engaging in hideous games of one-upsmanship with their fellow new arrivals.

This part made me think of this video on the NY subway that exemplifies exactly what you're talking about: https://youtu.be/yVzAC7mLxJw

This guy is doing something extremely kind for this lady that it brings her to tears and yet the way he does it almost seems aggressive and demanding but it's such a nice act!

And for the kindness to be appreciated and not considered as weakness you need to select who to give it to properly. And for that you need to be judgemental.

And bbc and current mainstream median culture will not tell you to be judgemental.

Why? Because they they want to be the teller what is right and what is wrong - not you.

I have experienced this a few times in relationships. Was brought up to always be courteous and kind. In our society those are the most admired qualities of a person. In the big world where people didn't grow up the same way I did I felt this is often misinterpreted for weakness. Trouble always starts when I "suddenly" do not budge from a position I believe in. An example is I do not believe in splashing my life on social media.

We were also brought up to be kind to visitors. Go out of your way to make them feel at home. We joke now as adults how the only time we had Coca-cola in the house was when we had visitors. The idea is a visitor shouldn't stay too long so it is best to be kind to them. The problem starts when visitors overstay and continue to expect the same treatment. Or they visit to often.

A defining trait of American culture is hyperactivity. Commenting on trivial stuff, moving around restlessly while holding a drink, despise for idle time. The "kindness" thing is a form of hyper-expressivity which is rarely seen in calm cultures.

If you think that there are defining traits of that many people in a country that varies so greatly in terms of geography, lifestyle, religion and culture, then you just don't know what you're talking about.

So, yeah.

Look out for any exciting opportunities to visit El Paso, Texas or Birmingham, Alabama for a proper comparison sometime if you can.

Bonus points for Brownsville, Texas where you can get a well steeped mix of the South & border along with a rocket launch!

I have tinnitus in the city.

I go to the mountains and it’s gone.

Keeping ratings and quarterly growth up is, to my mind, emergent of people who live densely.

Intuiting incorrectly that lots of people moving around organically means life is to be lived on the go.

That statement is kind of what I mean. I don’t think most people outside, and to some extent inside the US, appreciate how much diversity of culture exists in the US.

You ever been in Spain, Italy, Germany or France?

This is simply not true, in Spain they have so many different languages, in the others they have incredibly dialects that seem like entirely different languages and can be only as short as 25km away from one another--something like Badish vs schwabish vs Alemansich vs Hoch Deutsch.

You have to live in places like Hawaii (which I did) before you get anything close to the stark differences I'm talking about, where they have an entirely different set of culture and language (Hawaiian pidgin) to see what is so pervasive all throughout Southern and Central Europe.

I honestly feel as though this is a lack of awareness of other regions and the differences inside of them. I don't know how you can make sweeping statements like that. A cursory look at a linguistic diversity map should immediately hint at a different reality, and that's just one metric. There are places in Africa where you have genetic lines that are distant by tends of thousands of years from surrounding villages as measured by their Y chromosomes.

Many cities in the US provide documentation in often 4 or more languages. Schools employ large teams of specialists for teaching English as there are significant amounts of schools where less than half of the student population is a native English speaker.

Cable TV in most areas offers packages of programming in many different languages. In the US, network television is broadcast with a simultaneous Spanish language audio.

This homogeneous white, English speaking, Christian view of the US may have been true in the 1960s, but outside of the rural US, this is no longer valid.

The US doesn't have all that much diversity comparitively. There is more diversity in skin colour, but the major cultural groups are far closer to each other than European ones.

You don't see how homogenous the culture is because you are so close to it.

As far as Africans go, there's not a whole ton of difference between white Americans and black Americans. I think that, like in Europe, there's entrepreneurs, setting up "Return to Your Roots" tours for diasporans.

Europe probably has more experience with Africans than the US. When I have met black folk in Europe, they have frequently been first- or second-generation Africans, as opposed to the US, where most black folks I know come from families that have lived here for many generations. I think the UK has a similar culture.

I lived in Uganda, when Idi Amin threw out all the Ugandans of Indian descent. These were true Ugandans, who had lived there for generations. It was devastating; both to the people that were thrown out, and the nation, itself. The infrastructure of the nation collapsed, almost overnight.

It's pretty much impossible to "un-mix" a mixed society. That's not for want of trying, though. History is full of "ethnic cleansing" boneyards. It never seems to end well, but we seem to be a bit thick, in learning the lesson.

I'd say that this is the same reductive view that Europeans have of India, for comparison.

Wikipedia (not the greatest source, but reasonable for a HN discussion) says in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_groups_in_Europe that linguistic minorities in Europe are about 14% of the population, while only about 3% are diasporas of non European origin.

Christianity (51% of the population) in Europe is written into the law, so even if you grow up atheist in Europe, you are still culturally Christian.

India is ethnically a bit less homogenous, with three major linguistic groups (Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Iranian). Religiously, monotheistic groups are about 20% of the population, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_India , and a majority of laws aren't based on a single dominant religious philosophy (the Modi government is working on changing that). There is variation in food based on region, climate, and religious subgroup. The dominant flavour would be some sort of brown, polytheistic groups, strongly influenced by other polytheistic groups and with very strong monotheistic influences from Jainism, Sikhism, Islam and Christianity.

This is the 10000m view, rather than the 3000m view which would show more detail.

I've always suspected the perceived "rudeness" comes not from the residents of New York, but rather the people from neighboring locations that commute into New York for work. New Jersey, I'm lookin' at you.

Can you elaborate on it? I don't have much experience interacting with people.

Folks each have their own "schtick," but it's what they are after that matters.

1) Money

2) Property

They want me to give them money or goods.

3) Prestige

They want me to feed a need for prestige. This can be as simple as agreeing with them in public, an endorsement or referral, or a requirement for some kind of submissive fawning.

I started to write up a detailed description of how this can happen, but realized that this is probably not the best venue for that. Suffice it to say that I have spent my entire adult life amongst some very aggressive and manipulative people, and keeping a good relationship with them, while gently enforcing personal boundaries, has always been a challenge.

For me, I have a personal ethical code that revolves around rigorous personal and "cash register" Honesty, as well as Integrity.

Okay, I’ll bite, why would you keep people like this around you? It sounds unpleasant.

Then even after gathering evidence of their poor performing, they will just keep arguing their case, and would protest to everyone who will listen, and pit people against each other. They will claim they never knew those things were their responsibilities, that they were working hard on it, and that they were just about to address the performance issues, etc.

Most folks that need help aren’t “pinkie-extended Earl Grey drinkers.” Can be a rough lot.

But I have an amazing bevy of really deep friendships and relationships with folks that I would never had met, otherwise.

Totally worth it.

Can you give a concrete example you specifically encountered? I lived in New York for half of my adult life before moving west. I can’t remember ever having to be too worried about that. Is it possible you just have trouble expressing yourself outwardly?

Well, there's always passive-aggressive insults. That's considered a low-risk approach.

Looks like we've pretty much exhausted this thread. I'll just exit, stage left.

Happy Holidays!

Once you have that, the other factors (industry, city) don't matter - you are able to act the way you want independently of how people are, because you're confident that you won't let their transgressions cross over into "you."

It's been a long process learning this for myself as well.

The midwest is nice. New York city folks are not. I've worked at two companies where I managed or worked heavily with our New York office and hated it both times.

I realize not every New Yorker is an asshole and not everyone can leave the city on a whim but if its good for your health its worth considering.

We also volunteer in droves [1].

[1] https://gallery.mailchimp.com/e3163e2ee79e21b79cf36982c/file...

In fact I don't believe I even think of myself in categories such as "weak" or "strong". I know I'm extremely averse to conflict, which, I guess, would be considered "weak". I'll let you have your way (within reason), but then that's the last time you'll see me, which is probably not the outcome someone trying to exploit you is hoping for.

I will say the opposite can also be frustrating. People conflate niceness with kindness or even worse, morality. Being gruff isn’t intrinsically immoral. Being super “nice” isn’t intrinsically moral.

This might sound like some sort of rationalization for bad behavior, but I don’t think so. When you optimize you have to have at minimum a hierarchy of optimization goals. At some point, one goal WILL conflict with another. This means that conflating niceness with morality will inevitably lead to misguided and immoral/unethical behavior.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law

To be frank, I find the ratio of people who actually do that to people who think they do that but are really using it as an excuse for not exercising their interpersonal skills is 1:1000. I've known many people that called themselves brutally honest, but with the exception of one particular manager I can recall, it always ended up being an excuse to feel powerful by shocking people with a brazen lack of tact while the truth of the statement, even if occasionally beneficial, was incidental.

Who knows... maybe you're the 1 out of the 1000. The tone of what you wrote sounds more reasonable than what many others have expressed in that vein, so I'm inclined to think so, but it'a hard to tell without having universally accepted bounds to words like kindness, politeness, and honesty. That said, doing good deeds and not directly insulting people we deal with doesn't absolve us from a the basic social necessity to treat other people with compassion and humanity. For that reason, whenever I encounter anyone that touts their honesty at the expense of kindness, I generally consider it a tacit admission that they have some serious work to do on their interpersonal skills and don't realize it.

A complementary but closely related problem is that many people mistake unkindness for aggression.

I suspect what the grandparent refers to is people who are offended at hearing "no." Example - someone asks to get in front of you at a line. If you're feeling kind, you say yes. Saying "no" is just neutral, but many people perceive it as a "fuck you."

No, it isn't. You can be unkind and peaceful. Civilization is based on the possibility that people who hate each other can still work together for the common good. Intentional kindness is often disgustingly hypocritical, at least in my (non-U.S.) culture.

Have one group of people who "actively" is kind to people, i.e. they actually act on their desired.

Then compare the results to a control group who "wants" to be kind to people, ideally has a proven track record of being kind to people, but are not allowed to act on that during the duration of study. Then of course they also need to still be as satisfied and happy as before, otherwise they turn into a biased control group.

Then if there are no differences, and compared to another control group of "normal" humans, there is a statistically significant improvement in health, then and only then, they may be on to something... Otherwise this is just another case of survivor bias.

This is all just pointless. At least here it's for a good cause, but I always am amazed by what kind of conclusions people derive from the well established: Causation implies correlation... Erm, NOT.

Is human behavior truly so opaque that experiments cannot be designed that conclusively determine specific causation?

Even in pharmaceutics, confounding variables are already common place that led to a considerable replication crisis, with human behavior it would be even more impossible to control for every variable, and measure only what one wants to measure.

A very simple problem with such a design which would perhaps indicate that human beings that are not allowed to be kind would be less happy is simply that human beings become unhappy when they are told what to do, not necessarily anything related to kindness; it's certainly not implausible.

And the fundamental problem remains that a man cannot be compelled to participate in any study, and that alone is a selection bias that cannot be overcome — studies thus select upon the kind of person who have the time and willingness to participate in them.

- causality is less widely applicable than we like to think

- our behavior is more complex than we like to think

I'm more inclined to doubt causality. Not that it's not a useful framework in general, but that is less useful when applied by humans to humans regarding human constructs like kindness.

But I am proposing that we should have some skepticism when importing an explanatory style that has worked well in physics and expecting it to perform equally well everywhere. I think we're likely to make mistakes of this sort:

If a cat's head appears from behind the couch, and then later its tail becomes visible--you wouldn't say that the cat's head caused the cat's tail--they're just different parts of the same phenomenon. We're familiar with cats, so we don't make this exact mistake, but I think that we are quite susceptible to misapplying causation to things that we don't understand well, like happiness.

Years ago I had this idea that many of our ideas about causation are flawed in this way. So I developed a habit of taking a causal claim that seems true, flipping the arrow around, and then testing the mutated hypothesis--just to see if it worked backwards. I was surprised by how often it did.

I don't have the data to convince you that the habit of mistrusting my instincts about causation and using "deep down, it probably goes both ways" as a heuristic has caused me to reap benefits that I would have otherwise ignored, but I suspect it strongly enough that I plan to keep doing it.

So the difference between the alternative perspectives is that if you're skeptical about the universal utility of causal nitpicking, you'll learn to recognize when you're wasting your time trying to prove that the laws of physics demand whatever you've noticed. You'll bail sooner on perspectives that don't work, and you'll be more creative about finding new ones.

On the other hand, if you demand a certain style of causal argument, you're more likely to double down against the opacity of human behavior to other humans. You'll design experiments and write articles that inspire further nitpicking about which is a cause and which is an effect, and the matter will remain in stasis--perhaps indefinitely--where its capacity to positively affect people's heath is limited.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to uncover underlying mechanisms when we can. When that's in cards it's pretty great. I'm just saying that we shouldn't always expect results of that sort to be within reach, and that reasoning from correlation alone can get us further than we tend to let it.

One thing you might mean is that causal chains are very complex and variable, so the average causal effect in a large population is not very informative about any individual - it’s an average of many different sized effects.

As for your first paragraph, I don't think you can reasonably treat causation like an everywhere-binary like that. Not for arbitrary choices of X and Y.

Take "hunger" and "war" for instance. There are many causal arrows pointing from war to hunger, and several pointing the other way too. You have to zoom in to specific details before the language of causation starts being useful. "good for your health" and "being kind to others" are similarly aggregate concepts.

Causation is a myth, and a damn good one. We use it to reason about nearly everything. But the tendency to use it to reason about actually everything is a dangerous one.

Most of the time you can't "hold everything else constant". We usually have to settle for frobbing X back and forth many times and letting its continued correlation with Y convince us that there is indeed causal wiring between the two. At the end of most experiments is an inductive leap of faith that is justified by the high frob cout.

But sometimes X doesn't go back and forth. Sometimes it's a one-way deal and you only have one of them. Like maybe X is "finding carbon trapped in the earth's crust and releasing it into the atmosphere", and Y is "a global change in climate that poses an extinction risk to humans." In cases like that, we don't have the luxury of waiting for enough induction to bring about the leap of faith.

The situation with kindness and heath is similar. Ideally we'd take whatever wisdom we can from the correlative data that was presented and run with it--maybe there's a cause in there and it would make us healthier, maybe not. Instead we have this artificially high bar for argumentative strength, and when an argument fails to meet it we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[1] More thoughts about this at: https://wyclif.substack.com/p/on-social-science-about-comple...

[2] Like the literature coming from http://data.nber.org/ens/feldstein/ENSA%20Sources/Geospatial...

I don't have a problem with the idea on it's own. It's a great way to understand all kinds of things. But data to support explanations of that sort is hard to come by.

What I object to is the belief that all explanations that can in principle be put in terms of cause, must in practice be put in terms of cause--otherwise they're useless (which, I think, motivated a lot of unnecessary handwaving in the bbc article, and probably in the ones that it references too).

Researchers should contribute useful data so that others can reference it to make decisions. That data becomes less useful when they have incentives to skew things so that they can meet the awkwardly high bar of "supports a causal argument" just to be worthy of publication.

It ought to be ok to say: "these things go together. Here's the evidence. It might not be possible to untangle the causal web between them, but if you try one I bet you'll see the other," and leave it at that.

Not to say that untangling the causal web isn't worth doing, but sometimes it's just not in the cards, and demanding that we search for it in the cards is like going hungry because all of the carrots left in the grocery store are strangely shaped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis

each passing day I feel more and more inclined to buy me a piece of land with no one around it, build a small house in the center of it and never interact with this kind of people forever.

The best strategy seems to be to give people the benefit of the doubt initially, being kind and altruistic without reservation. But as soon as they don’t respond in kind, you update your strategy immediately and stop extending any generosity beyond baseline courtesy. The ball is in their court now. If they switch from selfishness to altruism, then you can match them. Otherwise, don’t let yourself be exploited.

I’ve found this approach has simplified many social decisions for me. Even things like whether to say hi to a neighbor passing on the sidewalk. I used to not always be sure of the best way to handle these situations. If you give a hearty greeting and are ignored, you feel lame and rejected. If you ignore them and it turns out they are friendly, they could see you as unfriendly, or they might also be on the fence, waiting to see what you do, and by ignoring them you miss out on establishing a friendship that could be valuable to both of you in the long run.

Now it’s easy: I say hi the first time I see someone and treat them warmly. If they aren’t friendly back, I don’t worry about it. I simply ignore them now unless they make an effort to change the dynamic (happens more than you might think, actually).

This way you don’t miss out on the good people, don’t sweat the bad/manipulative people, and remain flexible in case someone was just feeling shy or having a bad day. Game theory ftw!

[0]https://ncase.me/trust/

I think a potential flaw is assuming people are static beings. Consider if you passed me shortly after my dog died...I may not be in a mental state to even notice you said anything. If we passed weeks or months later I could be in a completely different state but we’re still not connecting because you’ve already concluded it wasn’t worth the effort.

I feel like there is a fundamental issue if people look for interactions to be transactional marketplace. It’s completely different than deliberately acting from a place of compassion

A constraint is wanting to remain open to potentially rewarding new relationships (so not simply closing yourself off to people who aren't already in your circle).

Another constraint is remaining flexible for when people update their behavior (in either direction). Which I think answers your objection? If you were in a bad state because your dog died, that's completely understandable. But now it's up to you to salvage the dynamic, not me, as I already went out on a limb once. If you do that, then the first encounter would be water under the bridge and I wouldn't hold it against you.

Giving compassion is wonderful, but life is a lot better when you reserve most of it for people who will respond with compassion in kind, rather than milking it for their own benefit and giving nothing in return. Sticking up for yourself doesn't mean being transactional--it just means that you extend compassion to yourself as well as to others.

I found it only feels wrong because I expected something. So the problem is as much in my expectation as their behavior and based in a faulty assumption that interactions are a zero sum game. I don’t always embody non-transactional compassionate behavior but having tried both approaches, once you can get past the expectations of what people can do for you, I find it a better way to live.

But in many cases compassion may mean self sacrifice: time, money, effort etc. It's fine to expect something back, at least not being mean or more demanding to you or sour about why you didn't do more. There are toxic people like that that you better not help. You can learn it the hard way. Maybe it can be communicated better, but in many cases people are predisposed to see you as a threat. If you offer to help, they think you do it as a scheme to help yourself and screw them. And they will fume even years afterwards that you somehow screwed them over when you genuinely helped them. That you didn't help enough, that you were selfish etc.

You need to choose who you spend your finite energy on. Not every person in a bad place is some idealized angel who is thirsty for your help and will be grateful.

I'm more talking about when someone goes in the other direction and is notably unkind, inconsiderate, cold, exploitative, or otherwise disrespectful to you. That's when it's time to switch to a new strategy.

To me, ignoring a neighbor who greets you is pretty cold and disrespectful, but yeah, everyone has a different line when it comes to these things, and it depends a lot on context.

You could probably also put a maximum age on your game state. E.g. if it's been more than a week since this person failed to reciprocate, then treat this like an initial interaction.

Yes, everyone has a complex inner history blah blah blah. There's 6 billion people, and you're not going to give equal attention to all of them, so you need different approaches. Plus, explicitly playing tit-for-tat keeps you from being emotionally gamed as easily.

As an aside, the perspective is appreciated but dismissive approaches to comments (“blah blah blah”) tend to go against HN guidelines. You make good points but I wouldn’t want them to be lost to moderators because of the phrasing

Some people will be narcissists, self involved, and mean. Some people will try to take advantage of you. That's okay; You cut them out of your circles and move on. Being kind and pruning your social circles to those who are kind in return is like tending a garden. It isn't 'unkind' to weed the place a bit from time to time to make an environment that you enjoy being in.

Agreed. We all deserve the same fundamental measure of respect. It’s equally important to be kind to myself and to others. The two are the same thing in disguise.

It can take reflection to parse out each situation, but if a “helping” act of mine is actually damaging to me in a way I resent or would prefer to avoid, then am I really being kind to the other person? I’d argue that often I’m actually acting out of an unhealthy impulse of guilt, some sense of social-obligation, self-identity, etc, which is really just about myself.

Sometimes helping another person - even if they want said help - actually doesn’t help them at all, and that’s not really kindness in my opinion. It requires judgement.

True kindness includes more than the “soft and mushy” feelings a lot of us look on with suspicion. Authentic kindness and care can be hard as fuck because it means saying no or not helping someone when your natural impulse is to do so.

See: parenting, family members/friends with addictions, letting go an employee who’s well-intentioned, breaking up with someone who’s nice, etc.

IMHO Buddhist thought is a great tool for thinking about this kind of stuff.

I see and experience the same things you do, and I choose compassion and kindness (my mantra with strangers is: trust, care, help). I can't change other people or the world, but I do choose how I respond to them. I can defy the evil, unhappiness and despair in the world. What I've learned is that it is so much better for me, and for the other people, and for the situation - it doesn't solve every problem, it's not the entire solution, it doesn't even work every time, but it moves the needle; perhaps most importantly, I think it sets an example and inspires others - imagine a world without the compassionate people. Compassion is armor: When people act like jerks, usually it's because they have their own problems, their are overwhelmed, they are afraid, etc. You and I act like jerks too. Have compassion on them and on yourself - life is hard.

> never interact with this kind of people forever

Whatever kind they are, they are everywhere. We all need to find our peace of mind, but at the same time I don't want to withdraw: What am I living for? To avoid? More people are more opportunities to live.

But then again, would it really be a genuine gesture on the giver's end if they were to filter based on the receiver's character or whether they will be grateful for it?

The positivity from you is likely to be absorbed by the negativity, never to be seen again, instead of snowballing into a boulder of positivity as you'd hoped. I feel the only answer is to be an endless source of positivity. In that case you're not worried whether the drops of positivity from you end up somewhere they're appreciated or not. The negativity sponges might suck you dry, so it's not for everyone. For most of us the answer might be to constrain our positivity outlets into safer, more controllable spaces (volunteering for an organization, etc.) where it is less likely that we might feel anything negative for our efforts.

Kindness can and should come with boundaries. No one is entitled to your time or energy. Choosing to spend that energy on another person, without thought of reward, is a form of kindness.

We can and probably should be polite to people by default. That is a way of showing kindness. If the other person decides to be a blackhole, leave them. If they are harming someone, you are free to (and probably should) warn other people.

Kindness does not require you let people take advantage of you.

Helping others doesn’t mean you have to set yourself up to be a sucker. Which you kinda point out when you about volunteering. But IMHO in any space our own judgement is still required and essential.

"Humans are extremely social, we have better health when we are interconnected, and part of being interconnected is giving"

Being generous and resenting it or moving away from people would probably be antithetical to being connected. Being taken advantage of makes one feel less connected, which might be what you're experiencing.

For a good, short read related to this I'd suggest Sebastian Junger's book Tribe

BNS doesn't mean it only happens between neighbors, just that that's what it feels like even if it happens between two parties that are not necessarily neighbors, e.g., two coworkers, two classmates, two CEOs of rival corporations. The list is endless.

BNS is the bane of my existence. I'd do anything to have a life where I'm not in a BNS match with anyone.

I'm a pretty reasonable guy. I can put myself in others shoes. But when I notice that people don't retribute, I tend to act. My father put up with a lot of things (trying to be a better person) that I don't.

Now some would summarize it as: be as kind to you as you're to others. I, like your father, has a weird tendency to do everything for free.. but it's unhealthy and I suffer. But I can't really blame others for that.

Being strong and balanced.. a healthy dose of selfishness (kinda like a kid)

Ready for a move to a house of my own without audible neighbors or selfish and uncompromising attitudes.

Struggle for scarce resources triggers ancient and primitive defensive attitudes. Either that or people in the northeastern cities are rude.

Honestly learning to set boundaries was game-changing for my emotional health and my relationships.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It takes effort to be kind.

When you don't have boundaries, you are constantly expecting to be transgressed upon, so half the time you let people do it and other half of the time you tell them to fuck off when it would have been fine to help them. That's what I mean by asshole.

What you're talking about is a healthy no. And I agree there are good ways and bad ways to say it, and you're right that being clear on your boundaries enables the good way - can be as simple as "I am sorry, I am just not comfortable with that."

That's okay. Sometimes you are taken advantage of. Sometimes your kindness truly helps improve another person's life. Sometimes your kindness returns to you amplified.

Risk minimization isn't always the best strategy. It can be okay for things to not work every time.

For most of my life I have assumed that people are mostly good, and while this may actually be true, when I reflect on some of the times in my life I was stressed out it was due to extending myself to others, to then later feel taken advantage of or on the hook for future favors.

As an example, I helped an older neighbor put up a wireless security camera. I had the same camera and I used a double-sided industrial strength adhesive to affix it to the side of my house. When my neighbor asked for help and I made it clear upfront that I'm not too handy, and this is just what worked for me. I didn't have a drill or screws for a proper install and in my case those weren't needed. Mine had been installed for 6 months at the time using the adhesive. I told her that if she was OK with that then I'm happy to get out the ladder and install it. Turns out, the siding material on her house was different than mine and her camera only stuck to it for a couple of hours before dropping off, swinging by its solar-panel's charging cable. She stormed over, knocked aggressively on my door during my dinner, and marched me over to the swinging camera to show it to me suspended in the breeze. Her girlfriend also commented on my inept handy work.

So, I helped a neighbor and was honest upfront with a disclaimer. She accepted and then when things didn't work out she made it my fault. I was the schmuck. Oh, and I setup the software on her computer and phone so she could get email alerts for motion activity. Despite the generosity I showed with my time, when the outcome wasn't ideal I got blow-back for my good deed.

This also reminds me of the time I let my choosing beggar neighbor hop on our WiFi network until he got his installed. Needless to say, he never did get his own and became indignant when I cut his access off after several months of free use. Yep, lots of people suck.

Alright, what does being kind really mean?

I grew up in a third world dog-eat-dog culture where kindness is generally equated with naivete and everyone has to keep their guard up against each other.

I'm still struggling with ping-ponging between being taken advantage of or being too mean. I don't know where to draw the line and with whom.

In the last couple months alone I've been played for a fool by a few people who, to put it simply, weren't deserving of kindness. It certainly has not been good for my health, mental or physical, and it's going to leave me too cold and cynical for someone who could actually use some kindness, until I being to feel bad about that and open myself up to being exploited and so the cycle repeats.

But what if you only make anonymous donations, or help others in ways that are "kind" but do not allow others to connect with you? What's the contribution of kindness as "morally positive actions", and the contribution of kindness as a "social(-izing) activity"?

This is especially true in modern corporate environments, where incentives are aligned to promote a dog eat dog world, no matter what the corporates speak about 'values'. It is compounded by a culture where not getting a promotion or not earning ever increasing salaries, is propagated and interpreted as undeserving, weak or useless.

Human nature is described in Hindu scriptures as 'restless and unpredictable as a drunken monkey, stung by a scorpion'.

So people learn to hide their kindness, and put up a facade of toughness. But just as a lie repeated a million times is percieved as truth, a kind personality hidden behind toughness loses itself and the person becomes a shell of their former selves.

That is why you have news stories today celebrating small acts of kindness, integrity, honesty or truthfulness, where the norm is those acts should be a standard part of every persons life.

1) People who like to take high risks, might be less keen on communal activities, like volunteering.

2) People who have bad habits might also be less likely to volunteer.

3) Depressed, stressed out, cynical people may be less likely to volunteer.

4) Poor people are less likely to donate and also have lower life expectancy.

5) People who died earlier didn't make it into that point in life where they would be able to donate. This one is easier to control though.

And probably countless of other things? I'd need to go deep into the actual study to understand how they controlled for all of that, but right now it makes me very skeptical.

Poor people seems to be quite generous [1].

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/the-science-behind-b...

It depends on the giver and on the receiver; and therefore how healthy the relationship/exchange is. Let me explain:

* if the receiver is a narcissist/sociopath, for starter they won't value the "gift" received, nothing will ever be enough, and they always seem to attract plenty fo givers

* if the giver had the disease to please whereas their own worth is depended on being told "good job" or similar, it will eventually deteriorate since in the mind of the giver, what they give will always be > what they receive and won't end well.

* Then there's victimhood chic, where people feel that they need help on everything 24/7 and becomes a co-dependent relationship between them and - slowly but steadily - the entire world; and rapidly reaches a point of impasse since the needs keep escalating and the help keep diminishing

Buddha had the 4-part solution:

1. Help yourself

2. Climb a mountain, tell nobody

3. More suffering is needed

4. The enemy is a wonderful teacher

I find it grating because my disposition of being kind gets me in situations where people try to exploit their perception of my kindness. There is this implication of "so you want me to think you're nice? well do this for me and I will." When it turns transactional like that - where their assumption is that I'm being kind to get something (because maybe that's how they interact - by being kind to get things), I feel like I have no choice but to switch to a very serious tone. Then comes the "you're not being very nice" which is the intent: I don't want them to think I'm being nice for personal gain. This is all very cynical and I really need to work on it, but it's a knee jerk response to what seems like slimy behavior.

>1. Help yourself

>2. Climb a mountain, tell nobody

>3. More suffering is needed

>4. The enemy is a wonderful teacher

I love wisdom like this - is there anything that talks about this in depth or is it more of a proverb only?

“There is research suggesting that people who are in better health are more likely to volunteer, but because scientists are very well aware of that, in our studies we statistically control for that,” says Sara Konrath

Few as an example:

1. Individuals who do high risk activities might be less likely to do volunteer work.

2. Individuals who simply have bad habits in life might be less likely to volunteer.

3. People who die earlier won't even make it far enough to be in position to donate.

4. Poor people are less likely to be able to donate and can get less care for medicine, have worse conditions generally.

I see thousands of such examples, I don't think it's possible to control for all of that, is it? You would have to

1) List all of those things that should be controlled. I imagine already this to be an amazing feat.

2) Somehow gather all this data from people.

What is meant by wait-listing? Does it mean their future is unclear and for this reason could their stress levels be higher?

Was maybe tutoring itself the activity that worked well not the kindness part in particular?

But anyway intuitively I believe volunteering and kindness do have health benefits, definitely reduces stress, feelings of guilt and just in general makes you feel better about yourself. So from this mental state there might be health benefits.

And while chemical levels differed it is still unclear what health effects there were. Being "linked" doesn't say much.

Think about it, if you are volunteering you are likely to not just have good health, but afford good health care, have plenty of free time for various activities, less stress in life, enjoy and seek social activities, outdoor activities, etc. All those things could impact health, but not volunteering itself.

My health is in shambles. So these days I have to take pride in just making sure kids have food.

Horrible feeling when people ask for help, and I know I’ll just be a burden.

Forgive everyone who you imagine did you wrong. And imagine everyone forgiving you.

Then forgive yourself.

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Thank you!!!!!!!

Great book.

Kindness is a polite word for love

Kind of interesting how as a society we seem to be rejecting it - a lot of technology enables us to be alone or at least not in direct contact with others.

I wonder what the ramifications of that will be in the future.

What I've seen during the pandemic is that technology enables my family to be in direct contact (if not physically) with others for most of our waking time. Certainly, my kids spend more time with their friends virtually than I did with mine physically as a child.

Does the physical part matter? The article references a study where altruistic behavior (a donation) has benefits even if that behavior isn't done in person.

Helping others any way I can does make me feel good (so does receiving help, for that matter), I guess that's the case for the majority.

Yes? My friends did not hug each other growing up. Hugs were for family members, which the kids are with every day during the pandemic.

I hate hearing the phrase 'real world' or 'physical' being used to describe non-electronic interaction. Call the in-person stuff analog if you'd like. But the digital stuff is just as real. We never have the entire quantum state of other people accessible. We always just get a small blurry sample of their true presence. Does it matter whether it goes through air or down a copper wire?

The only difference is with regard to security. I can see that argument as valid. But unless security/imposters are a concern, it's still the real deal.

LOL basically you have to accept that our current scientific understanding is that our minds are embodied constructs (your mind doesn’t exist in any meaningful way without your brain, which is a physical organ and fundamentally and essentially integrated with the body).

Thought itself is embodied.

Your argument proves the necessity of physical contact for human health.

Our biologies - our brains and bodies - require the information (chemical impulses, electrical impulses, etc) provided by our senses when embodied physical touch, sight, sound, the body heat of another person, etc, occur.

Unless a perfect simulacra of physical human interaction (including the ability for us to move our own physical bodies) was created, there will always be a lack of the information (consider the chemicals released by exercise, by a hug, and impact of said chemicals on the brain, the combination of chemicals from eating with the chemicals of being close to someone you like) which our embodied minds require for health.

You’d have to put a brain in a vat and feed it every single electrical impulse and chemical it would normally receive from being part of the body.

Otherwise you lose information and god knows what happens.

I don’t deny the value of interaction via the Internet, etc.

To imply it is anywhere near replacing the information density of embodied physical contact is just a sign of a lack of information - education - about all this stuff.

Perhaps in the future we will learn to shut off the primal instincts, but for now, it seems to do more bad than good if we ignore them.

> sadly we're tied to these primitive bodies

Our bodies (and the sensations and emotions produced by them) are not primitive. They’re super sophisticated and we are nowhere near being able to replicate them.

There’s interesting work btw on the fundamentally intertwined nature of emotion and “rational” thought.

Emotions are a drawback imo, the fact that they're so deeply intertwined with the logical parts is a drawback.

We often act against our own best interests and health purely because we're afraid, for example.

Biological bodies are indeed, very sophisticated and versatile, too bad we can't control any of the features.

Homie I hope you eventually wake up and smell the coffee :).

Take away emotions, lol, and you literally are no longer a human being.

Lol take away emotions and you literally die - fear, anger, sadness,desire, hunger, joy, curiosity. Intellectual curiosity is an emotion. The joy of solving a problem, doing something with some slick and elegant logic? Emotion.

> We often act against our own best interests and health purely because we're afraid, for example.

Best interest? The very concept fundamentally depends on caring about something - being alive, the good of humanity, whatever. Caring about absolutely anything? An emotion :).

We actually are able to control a lot, but not all of our bodies. Once we accept that we are inherently emotional beings and work on being more conscious of our feelings and mindful ;).

FWIW while it’s a lifelong effort, practicing to neutrally observe our feelings and treat them more as data to analyze, without divorcing ourselves from them or denying them, is a powerful tool to counterbalance the ease of confusing a transitory feeling with one’s self and the counterproductive behavior or decision-making which often stems from that. AKA practicing mindfulness.

Lol which I’m not really doing, writing such a heated comment ;).

Laughter? Emotion.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed but computers are perfectly logical and have no emotion and they’re not fucking alive.

Take a page from Commander Data’s book and try to appreciate the fundamental nature of humanity :).

The most surprising part of therapy to me was just how rational, analytical, and logical it all is. Like, things start to make sense which didn't before. Therapy has many components but identifying irrational distortions in our own thought processes is a huge part of it. Which strengthens our ability to rationally assess and interact with our own feelings as they arise.

Thus, counterintuitively, embracing emotional work actually decreases the discomfort/negative impacts of the unpleasant or negative emotions we wish to avoid. Unfortunately, avoidance actually makes it worse.

And therapy often feels unpleasant, but, so does exercise. And therapy's a lot less unpleasant than whatever motivates one to engage in therapy to begin with ;).

LOL FWIW I've basically found that personal growth is a process of discovering my own backwards/inverted internal logics. : /.

If the stuff I said before resonates, FYI, it's all basically cribbed from Buddhist thought or research on mindfulness (UCLA has a pretty good center doing mindfulness research & this is a good book: https://www.uclahealth.org/marc/fully-present).

I got lucky enough to be able to do (still do) a significant amount of therapy w/a skilled shrink (psychologist with Phd with at least some cognitive-behavioral background work, ideally having significant clinical experience) which has been a huge help to me. I also got lucky and the shrink in question had excellent judgement and was the right kind of person for me, which is critical. Seen bad shrinks too.

Lol so all this means I'm definitely biased from my own experience.

FWIW I hope you find opportunities to cultivate the good emotions as they arrive in your life, from a simple cup of coffee (or whatever you like) to whatever. In addition to it's own benefits, this has been shown to improve our ability to manage or mitigate negative emotions in a healthy way.

I don't do it enough but there's significant amounts of research showing that writing in a journal (about anything) about ten minutes a day has really positive mental health outcomes, as does making a daily short list of 2-3 small things (like coffee ; ) to be grateful for.

And of course stuff like exercise, yoga, some kind of physical activity. Sorry if I've gotten preachy - as you can tell it's something I have strong feelings about, hah, pun intended.

Point being, while I can't speak to your circumstances, as a general rule it's actually very simple and straightforward to apply (but simple isn't the same as easy! Doing 101 pushups - simple, not easy) all the good science around specific, straightforward techniques for increasing genuine and healthy positive emotions, and mitigating the discomfort of negative ones or sort of neutralizing them altogether.

And all of this eventually helps one cease any self-destructive coping/self-medication behaviors (which I have done/do) - drugs, alcohol, computer games, overwork, etc, which, in this context, beyond their moment of actual use, make negative emotions worse and make it tougher to experience positive emotions.

Like mastery of any skill it takes patience and time but pays off in a big way.

peace! :)

-a